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Genome sequencing

Panspermia, spores and the Bacillus subtilisgenome

Nature volume 390, pages 237–238 (1997)Cite this article

In a lecture delivered at Harvard University almost three decades ago, Francis Crick declared that he had become disenchanted with the view that life arose on Earth. Instead, he espoused a Theory of Panspermia, which holds that life was sent to Earth from elsewhere in the Universe, and he proposed that the seed of life would have been an extraordinarily resistant spore of the kind produced by Bacillus subtilis and related bacteria. In response, Matthew Meselson pointed out that, if this were so, surely the extraterrestrial civilization would have sent a message in the spore. If only mankind was able to sequence DNA, he wistfully conjectured, then we could learn the secret of the Universe from the nucleotide sequence of the contemporary genome of the spore-forming bacterium. Now we have such a sequence, for on page 249of this issue1 a worldwide consortium report the 4,214,810-nucleotide sequence of the single chromosome of B. subtilis. If the sequence contains a cosmic revelation, it has evidently escaped the scrutiny of the 151 collaborators in this impressive sequencing project. Nonetheless, the B. subtilis genome sequence is a milestone in microbiology and of fundamental importance to industry, medicine and basic science.

The complement of genes making up the B. subtilis genome contains many surprises. The regulation of gene expression in this organism is known to be quite different from that in Escherichia coli. But the finding of genes encoding 18 sigma factors (prokaryotic regulators of gene transcription) is still surprising. It suggests that B. subtilis regulates many of its genes in small groups. The expansion of certain gene families (paralogues) is also remarkable, resulting in, for example, 77 different members of the ABC family of transporter proteins. These transporters are vital pumping systems that use energy from the hydrolysis of ATP to import cell nutrients and signalling molecules into bacteria, and to export toxic by-products of metabolism and noxious agents, such as antibiotics. The large number of ABC transporters in B. subtilis indicates that this organism has evolved an elaborate and finely tuned system for chemical communication with its environment. At the other extreme, one-quarter of the genes are present as a single copy and bear no obvious similarity to any other gene discovered so far. Presumably, they play some useful role in B. subtilis physiology under conditions that have not yet been mimicked in the laboratory. The presence of several antibiotic-production pathways — including a polyketide pathway occupying two per cent of the genome — indicates that this microorganism can defend its ecological niche. The genes of unknown function, comprising 42% of the genome, are the subject of a worldwide functional analysis programme that will define whether they are expressed and will attempt to assign a function to their products.

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Figure 1: Asymmetric division (sporulation) and symmetric division (binary fission) in B. subtilis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Scripps Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, 92037, California, USA

    James A. Hoch

  2. Harvard University, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard Losick

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  1. James A. Hoch
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  2. Richard Losick
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Hoch, J., Losick, R. Panspermia, spores and the Bacillus subtilisgenome. Nature 390, 237–238 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/36747

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